Disruptions may make Lok Sabha irrelevant: Kumar

ET BureauMay 8, 2010, 04.26am IST

NEW DELHI: With 72 hours of the budget session being lost in disruptions, Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday warned members that this trend would render the institution "irrelevant". "It is a matter of great concern that the House did not function on many days due to frequent disruptions. In this session, while we lost over 69 hours and 51 minutes due to interruptions and forced adjournments, the House sat late for 19 hours and 38 minutes to compensate the time lost," she said addressing the Lok Sabha just before adjourning the House sine die.

Ms Kumar said there was a growing sense in the country that Members of Parliament prefer to highlight public issues by disrupting the House than through discussions and debates. "Thus, in a fundamental sense, the House is facing a serious dilemma," she said.

While 36.6% of time was lost in Lok Sabha because of uproar in the House, in the Upper House 28% of the time was gone in disruptions during the session, which had 32 sittings. Around five bills were passed in the Lok Sabha, amid din, without discussion.

The Speaker, who is trying to consult political parties on a proposal to shift the question hour to the evening, said Lok Sabha could take up questions only on nine days in the second phase of the budget session. Opposition members had given notices to the Speaker for adjournment of question hour on several issues, including Shashi Tharoor, IPL and controversial remarks by MPs. Members often trooped into the well of the House despite the Speaker's repeated pleas to take up issues during zero hour.

"Questions are central to ensuring executive accountability. Parliamentary democracy can survive only if members allow the House to function. Disruption of the House will gradually render this institution irrelevant," she said. Of the 620 starred questions listed, only 76 were answered orally. On an average, only 2.37 questions could be answered per day, the Speaker pointed out.

Ms Kumar said that earlier in the week, a group of differently abled children came to watch proceedings of the House at her invitation, but the House was adjourned because of disruptions.

"I could see the disappointment on those innocent faces because they could not watch the proceedings due to abrupt adjournment of the House," the Speaker said. She asked everyone to seriously ponder over where things were going wrong. At a press conference later, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal admitted that the ruling party was also the cause of a couple of adjournments during the session. "I agree that the ruling party members should not do what the Opposition does. But at times an off-the-cuff remark leads to a situation like that," he said. To a question about bills being passed without a debate, he said "for one reason or another, the House could not function so we had to pass a couple of bills".